Uncouth, unearthening the ground smell

It was in November 2008, when "kisaan" announced that he was getting married. "Kisaan" is Sandeep Gupta. Sandeep was my room mate in mumbai. For our common interest in melancholy we became thick friends. Even after I shifted to Delhi, we would say to each other, "Yaar tum aa jaao, kaafi baatein hain...adhuri hain...kahin adhuri na reh jaaeen..."..Being typical Kanpuri, I learnt alot of ways of the world from him. Despite being rubbished by most of our room mates in Mumbai, he still turned out to be the more responsible and sensible amongst all of us. I named him "Kisaan" in Symbi for his uncanny resemblance to a farmer in an old "DD" ad on contraceptives and difference between two children. The name spread like fire and soon the whole campus knew him as "Kisaan" and not as Sandeep Gupta. His marriage was in Kanpur.

We took a train to Kanpur. The guest list was quite limited - Me, Dev, Atanu and Srinath. We are all erstwhile roommates of "Kisaan" from Mumbai. We reached in the afternoon and as usual I began cursing the state of Urban infrastructure in Kanpur till Dev shut me up, "Boss, this is India, keep your economics to yourself..enjoy the earthen India in its flavor..."..As we cramped ourselves in a speeding Bolero that took us from station to our hotels. All of us are in love with our slumber and the compromise in the early morning was a cardinal error which we were desperate to correct. Wait a second.....for a sound sleep, we needed a catalyst..We searched for the nearest pub. After gulping down a couple of beers, we were ready to crash.

By the time we woke up, Sandeep's childhood friend had arrived with Sandeep's marriage promise - A bottle of whisky. In our group, I am "British". Sitcking always to processes and procedures. I said, "Ohh Shit, how can we drink in the middle of a marriage". Dev's instant response was, "Dekho, yeh UP hai, bina saraab kaise majaa aayegi..piyo jaani piyo..."

When we arrived at the spot of the barat, we were all high and ready for the dulaah. Kisaan knew we were drunk, so the moment he saw us, "Deepak babu, baraat aage jaane dena...". I said, "Dulhe raja, kuchh hamen bhi maje lene do jaani.....baraat to ab aage nahi jaayegi.."....I still remember the horror on his face. He knew that I am uncontrollable after liquor as far as dancing in concerned. When he got on the horse, the band was bland...... playing as though it was a mere formality.... a job bestowed upon them by life to earn their livelihood...... waiting to excite them. For a while I waited, and then I jumped in.

Jumping, snake dance, bhangra, break dance.....suddenly the band came alive to the occassion..Dev joined me...so did Atanu.........the party came alive....While I was still in trance and Dev was throwing away "tenners" like he was a farmer on a field sowing seeds, I saw that Dulhe's chacha, mama, taya, bhabhi, bhaiyya were silently clapping away to glory.........Overpowered by the music and the dhamaal, both me and Dev dragged the ladkawala's before the poor ghodi.......By the time they started to enjoy the music....we pulled out.....we were like a car without fuel...panting like dogs we realised age had finally caught up with us.....

With a few hi-fives and cold drink, we felt much better. The dinner was awesome. When I got back to senses, I was like, "off..Deepak, how could you do that??" But the rest of the junta sure enjoyed it and had fun.........

I am always a little reluctant and hesitant about enjoying myself to the hilt and letting my hair down(Dont have much left to let them down anyhow..). It has got nothing to do with liquor though. I normally underplay myself, whether its party or life...but there are occassions when I just let the flow blow me away....that when I really am Deepak......

A perfect life...yeah whatever...

The Other day, while sipping on a cold coffee at Barista in Mumbai, I was meeting an old friend. Quite a character as she managed to attract the maximum attention in her hey days and even today does not seem to be bothered as far as attention is concerned. Currently doing some research work at an MNC she makes frequent trips abroad. Posing before foreign monuments with firangs walking in the background makes you wonder what is the camera supposed to capture most. I presume these are all arbid statements that even if put together give an impression of a meaningless collage than a defined modern art, but then writing in itself does not necessarily has to follow a set pattern (Deepak....where is this blog heading, get back on track..yes yes I will now)

Getting back, she seemed disgruntled with her current job (nothing new, Even Lord Krishna was bored of his job of hunting down papis on earth and found ways to amuse himself..... my apologies to the almighty if he didnt like my sarcasm) and was in pursuit of something creative. Like acting. "Acting is not everybody's cup of tea. Sure you are beautiful, smart etc etc, but then there is more to acting than merely looking like a doll." She made faces and said, "You are just jealous" I was mum or may be I would have grinned with sarcasm as I usually do when people comment on me being jealous.

I went back in time to find out an instance when I really found somebody's life close to perfect.

It was one of those late nights at Mumbai during the rainy days of October 2006. I was waiting outside the HSBC office at fountain under an umbrella. Marvelling at the beautiful building I managed to catch a glimpse of the big shot of HSBC - Ms Naina Lal Kidwai. I smiled and bowed my head in acknowledgement of her presence. Reluctantly she smiled back, trying to find her driver to her Honda Accord. As she passed I said to myself, "kya baat hai".

Those were the few days that Mr. Shagun ((k)night rider in Delhi) spent with HSBC. Dev was also working in the same office. Shagun used to give us a lift back home. As we boarded his car, he lighted a smoke. As we shared the somoke on the rainy day, I asked, "what are you waiting for? Lets leave." "No, yaar I am waiting for one of my seniors to join us back home". Here onwards I very distinctly remember the entire conversation. It went like this -

Amit( Senior of HSBC) - Hi Guys. Hope I didnt keep you waiting.

(Even at the end of the day, Amit was impeccably dressed, with gelled hair and was smelling musk. And of course who can forget this "Big Swinging Dick" not carrying a laptop)

Shagun: Sir, how did u get so late?
Amit: Actually Naina ma'am ke saath meeting thi. Some strategic issues you see...
All of us in chorus: Ohhh
Amit was not too old as I had thought he would be. Probably a couple of years elder to us....

Journey begins and Amit open his laptop, attaches the Net USB. Three years back net USB was a luxury. Shagun is ever curious with anything that happens around him. His curiousity could range from how to drive his sales force better to the best SPAs and massage parlours in Delhi. Even while gyrating through the busy and unruly traffic in Mumbai, he managed to catch a glimpse of what Amit was doing in his backseat.

Shagun: Sir, What are you doing..

Amit, With one of his eyebrows raised, pursed lips, carrying the look of a National Security Guard having zeroed in on his next target, was mentally pre-occupied with his Microsoft Outlook.

Amit: Did you say something Shagun? ( I was like grr.....)
Shagun: Sir, What are you doing..?

Amit(still in thoughts): aaaactually, I am expecting this very important mail.... (I thought to myself, "Of course we dont expect you to surf porn while going back home") ....(Says to himself)...there you go...

Shagun: Sir, so you are coming to that sales meet on Monday??

Amit: No...I am a little tied up

Shagun(Shocked, petrified...): Why???

Amit: Well, I am going to China this Sunday for a roadshow..will take about 15 days..

All of us in chorus: Ohhhh..

I tried to change the topic...

Me: So, Amit where do you live?

Amit: In Vashi

Me: (Smart Ass, finally something to pull him down) Must be quite a distance, Locals are really crowded you know.....

Amit(Cut me in between): Actually, My Swift has gone for servicing and Locals are a little claustrophobic...so...

All of us: Ohhh...

Dev: So, How big is your apartment?

Amit: Its five BHK..

All in chorus: WHAAAAAATTTTTT?

Amit: Yeah, its the latest apartment that has come. Its got a gym, a swimming pool, a small garden and the apartment overseas a small hill and we are able to see the sunset...if we reach in time that is...(and he let out a very very huge laughter that was oozing with sarcasm..)

Me: The rent must be very high..

Amit: Rent?? No No, We own the apartment

All of us in chorus: Howwwww??

Amit: Well the flat was damn cheap at about Rs. 60 lakhs. I had about Rs. 20 lakhs as my last year bonus from ICICI, my father pitched in with another Rs. 20 lakhs and we got a loan of about Rs. 20 lakhs....

I said to myself, "So, thats a real easy math...hmphhhhh"

Me: The EMI must be very hard on you and your wife..

Amit: No No, We got the loan at a very subsidized rate from ICICI and .....(gives a wierd pause..) My wife doesnt work..she works part time for an NGO...

All of us: Ohhhhhh..

Amit: Actually before marriage I told her- you dont need to work after marriage. work-life balance gets really upset...you may work if you want...no compulsions....and...rest is upto you

Me: Arranged marriage????

Amit(Takes off his spectacles, wipes it with his handkerchief...smiles): Love marriage, we met at MBA...dated for a couple of years.....then looked like it was getting somewhere.....then one day I popped the question...and we are happily married for the last two years...

All of us: Ohhhh..

Amit: Shagun, drop me there..I will catch a cab from here.......

Amit: Yeah...thanks guys..it was lovely talking to you guys...all the best....shagun see you in 15 days......

As he walked off with that laptop hanging from his shoulder, All of us shouted in chorus: I need a smoke......

Shagun never met him again as Shagun left the job in next week and is doing very well for himself these days in Delhi.....But given his exploits in Post grad and Grad is still very much single and longs for company every weekend night...

Dev got married in January 2007 and is still happily married with a small baby....not excited with his current job though....

As for me ....Well in 1998 my life was just perfect, since then its always been that elusive "99"....never quite there where I am content and happy......

Amit's life did seem quite perfect and unbelievable didn't it.....Life is like this roller coaster...moving up and down.....When down, you are waiting for that momentum to take you back up there and when its up there, you are living in this eternal fear of if the next roll of wheels will take you downhilll.....At least it better than staying stationary.......Is anybody listening out there??

I need my summer holidays back

When my office was in Gurgaon, just behind our office there was a smallish ground. At just about 4:30 pm kids used to come out there to play. They used to play football. Nowadays these kids wear branded T-shirts with some arbid number and name of some renowned footballer written at the back. (My knowledge on football is close to pathetic. The other day, somebody said Ronaldo is the best player, I disagreed and said, "Sachin at 36 is still the best.")

While I am merrily typing away this blog, I realised that I truly deserve a summer holiday (for at least two months). I was reminiscient of my summer holidays when I was in school.

Typically the day before the closure of the school, we used to organise a little get -together at school. Everyone used to bring some speciality or the other. It used to be an exciting day. No prizes for guessing why. And the day was punctuated with holiday homeworks being loaded on by teachers ensuring that the misery of the school shall continue. May be the logic was to keep the brain well oiled throughout the holidays, so that little brains dont go dead. Quite an unrealistic assumption. Later I realised that in India, we are constantly trying to guide children into structures and patterns.

The next day was to be a new day & planning would begin on full swing. The kid who would have to be hustled out of his cozy bed and made to stand with droopy eyes with a toothbrush laced with an equally drowsy looking toothpaste, the same kid would be up and running with a bat and ball at sharp 5:30 am. I was one of them. We would play till 9 and return home dirty and tired. After lunching it was time for some holiday home work. Oh, How much I hated it. There was a time in school, when I had to do something called "Cursive handwriting", which would run into pages. Why do they torture the kids with that, rather it could have been given to the Doctors who scribble on a letterhead decorated with alphabets they call "degrees" and then call it a prescription.

One would try to finish these repetitive jobs as soon as possible to have a more peaceful vacation. There was also time for a really long and never ending afternoon nap. By the time, you were awake, Mother was ready with a thirst quenching drink - it could be rasna, nimboo paani or aam panna. In the intermittant time between this late afternoon and evening, you would want to finish off those lingering holiday home works. (Silly teachers I must say).

Evening were set with matches with cricket teams of nearby colonies. They were tense and emotionally draining. (I started the trend of exchanging players for our internal matches and over time we were able to master them......Before Lalit Modi it was me who started the cricket league). When we returned, we could peacefully watch two hours of uniterrupted TV. DD ruled the roost and the audience lapped it up whatever came their way. But whether it was holidays or not, food was served at sharp 8 (Surprisingly we still follow that rule). And post that we would take walk in the night around the colony. Over time the seemingly innocent paths of night walks found their valid reasons of diverting them strategically behind the colony girls.

In between, we would also visit my cousins. Those were fun. Me and Aravind(at our age today) are still considered the most insane pair of cousins to have ever taken birth in the family clan (if at all we can call the world our fiefdom...but then of course nobody respects our fiefdom....lol). Our most infamous incident is when both of us finished an entire crate of panneer soda (Rose water soda) at my cousin's marriage. The soda was meant for the cooks who were getting parched inside a kitchen where food for about 500 people was being prepared with a fireplace in peak June heat and that too in Srirangam....There are other horror stories of how our senseless debates would undermine the most urgent work at hand (I guess, thats why both of us are not fit to be superheroes...god save the universe then...). We would also visit our more affluent cousins in Delhi where my little wants of exotic toys would get fulfilled ...even if those were for just a week, but I guess I never wanted those toys for more than a week anyways....

Every two years, we would also visit Chennai and nearby places as part of my father's LTC. The journey spanned 36 hours and gyrated through the beautiful landscape of mera pyaara bharat. It was an experience in itself. The day we are to leave, Mom would spend the whole day making food for the journey, so that we could spend as little as possible on eatables outside. Dad would call for the Taxi at least 3 hours and we would be at the station at least 2 hours before the departure. At the station we would shop for magazines and eagerly await our train. The whole build up of excitement waiting to board a second class compartment as compared to today's executive class journey in airplanes is still a million miles away. The whole concept of LTC for home town was quite a misnomer as far as we (me and my sister) were considered. For us, Chennai was alien land, where people spoke a foreign language, wore lungis, were perinnially drenched in sweat and smelled of Jasmine flowers. By no means I am demeaning my Tamil land. But we were a confused identity.

By the time the vacations would conclude, the sweet memories of vacations would get bulldozed by the piling holiday home work. Alot of it would consist of making charts and wierd looking science models which were eventually marked and dumped by the school stuff (Only certain privelged ones had theirs pasted on the walls of the class rooms. Well, your truly was a legend as far as chart making was concerned). The last few days were spent relentlessly in shopping for shoes, stationary, uniforms, school bags, pencil boxes and of course the most coveted possession of all - "Milton Water Bottle".

And thats how I spent most of my summer vacations. Today, I am pushing myself out of the bed at 7:30 Am, fighting the traffic for an hour to somehow make it to office by 9 am, from 9 to whenever time the day ends I am earning my bread and fall dead by the time I reach home.

Today morning I met Ishan, "Hey what are you doing downstairs so early?"..Ishan replied, "I have my summer holidays, I can do whatever I want....."...And then my mother cried from behind, "Here is your lunch, you are getting late to office...."....the smile on Ishan's face and the despair written over mine, just about underlined my misery

Prince of Pretonia

The other day Dev called up late at night to announce, "Arey suno, Rannvijay aa gaya hai...."..I jumped out of my chair. The wait had finally ended after nine months. (Dev and Anjali are glued on to this reality show called "Roadies", whose host is a dude called Rannvijay) Despite repeated requests that whichever way your kid turns out, if however, he doesnt turn out to be a dude, the name will look really dud. And I have this fetish for names you know...it brings about a lot of character to the whole person....it does not define it or anything but yeah it does make a difference. Madam "X" gets really pissed with me when I ask her the names of her acquaintances and I say, "Hmm..punjabi? marwari? madrasi?....I am sure he will be like this or that or whatever"..And she with great aplomb rubbishes my assumptions.......

So, I picked up Atanu to pay the new father a visit at Gangaram hospital in Rajinder Nagar. Its a fair distance away. Actually from where I stay, everything is a fair distance. So, I was reminiscient of the time when Ishan was born. It was lovely feeling to hold him for the first time in my arms when he was just a few minutes old. He looked at me, blinked..and closed his eyes again. Now When I look at him making fun of me, its hard to imagine the time gone by. But I do remember my imaginations..So I told Atanu the story of "Prince of Pretonia"

Pretonia is a planet which is exactly 30,000 light years away from the edge of Milkyway. It is in the galaxy Zaphhirexo. Unlike Earth Pretonia doesnt have an ozone. People there do not need oxygen. Pretonia exists before the start of time i.e. before the primeval atom. Pretonia funtions under Monarchs and ruled by the Psymasts. Since time immemorial they have been living happily under them. Exactly 27 earth years before, power for lust started to loom large on Pretonia. King Mazoos' military leader Shinkoo planned a genocide of the Psymasts. Mazoos got to know about the conspiracy and launched an offensive, but he slowly realised that he was going to lose the war. His family was small consisting of queen Fimilee & son Kasumi.

Shinkoo wants the "Jamascus". "Jamascus" is small crystal ball that has unlimited powers and can begin and end life at will. The holder of "Jamascus" rules the Universe. Psymasts have forever possessed it & used it with discretion. In fact our earth and the milkyway are a few of its creations. (thats why there are still undiscovered life forms beyond earth. Apart from earth, the only other planet to have people like us is on planet Minjus)Over generations, each king has come to possess the "Jamascus" and had rarely used it.

With threat looming large over King Mazoos, he was more bothered about "jamascus" than anything else. He then had to take the tough decision. He wanted to fight Shinkoo, but wanted to ensure that in case he lost, "Jamascus" must not fall in the wrong hands. He entrusted the job to his little baby son, "Kasumi". In a packed container he sent out baby Kasumi to earth.

Baby Kasumi's space container crashed landed in Delhi, India. He was found by a family of a Government servant living in Timarpur. Its been 27 years and he has been living with this family he calls his own. Little knowing about his past and the powers he possesses. He also does not know that somewhere in the Universe, Shinkoo is searching for him. And when Shinkoo and his men find Kasumi, Earth will witness a battle that will shape the future......of everything.......

Atanu in all his innocnece asked me, "Where is Kasumi?"..........Does anyone want to help him out??